“Plan de l’Ile a Vache & coste de St. Domingue de puis…

Title: “Plan de l'Ile a Vache & coste de St. Domingue de puis la pointe de l'Abacou iusquau cap de l'est d'Yaquin,”
Date: ca. 1700?
Author/Creator: [Bureau, Jacques (1669-1743)]
Publisher: [unknown]
Size: 50 x 76 cm.
Description: 1 map : ms., col. ; 50 x 76 cm.
Language of Item: French
Permanent Unique Identifier: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g4942v.lh000459
Notes: - Relief shown pictorially. Depths shown by soundings. - Pen-and-ink and watercolor. - Includes col. ill. - LC Luso-Hispanic World, 459 - Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as a raster image. - Vault
Manuscript or Print: Manuscript
Original or Facsimile Edition: Original
Library of Congress Subject Heading: Vache Island (Haiti)--Maps, Manuscript--Early works to 1800
Library of Congress Subject Heading: Haiti--Vache Island
External Reference Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/2003629715
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Highlight: This pictographic map of a part of the St. Domingue [now Haiti] south coast, was probably created in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The absence of the town of Les Cayes, and of the fort on Vache Island, together with the presence of only twenty or so plantations in the plain suggests an early date. The map is a manuscript, executed in pen and ink and watercolor. Fires appear to be burning in the interior hills, or mountain tops, perhaps due to arid conditions and/or human clearing of trees. In classic Caribbean mapping style, the focus is on the coastline, the shallows, the banks, an island in a bay adjacent to the larger island. There are soundings, navigational hazards, and anchorages, but also pictorial representation of topography, vegetation, and plantations. Most striking is the cartouche in the bottom right of the map, depicting a group of seven black figures, Africans or persons of African descent: two women standing, wearing headties and multi-colored skirts, carry infants on their backs; each woman suckles with one breast slung over the shoulder (over-the-shoulder-breastfeeding was a negative stereotype associated with Africans); a boyish-looking child has caught or is playing with a wild green bird (perhaps a parrot); another woman, also dressed in a multi-colored skirt, is seated with bow under one arm and an arrow in the other hand; and she looks down toward a boy (or perhaps boyish-looking girl) who returns the gaze as he or she pulls an arrow from a quiver. Is it a hunting scene; or just meant to signify slaves at rest? Could the group be maroons, accounting for the arms? There seems a measure of ambivalence in how the group is rendered: part derogatory, part sympathetically, with a measure of individuality. Bureau is known to have been involved in the mapping of the Mississippi.